What neuroscience tells us about winning at sales: An interview with David Hoffeld

In the sales industry, we talk a lot about best practices and how to apply them inside our organizations. But what if applying best practices isn’t actually the best way to improve sales performance?

That’s the contention of David Hoffeld’s groundbreaking book, The Science of Selling. Hoffeld spent twelve years studying academic studies in neuroscience and psychology to understand how the brain works in buying situations. He brought that research into the field of sales, and tested the insights across thousands of sales calls to develop the system outlined in his book. His work has been featured in Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CBS Radio, Fox News Radio, and more. He’s also a regular sales and leadership contributor to Fast Company, holds a Master’s Degree, and studied selling at Harvard Business School.

Hoffeld recently joined the Membrain team as a partner, with the intent of using our software to support the work he does in building science-based selling systems. We interviewed him about his research and methodology and why he thinks Membrain will help his clients.

Q: Tell us a little about your book and why you wrote it.

DH: I’ve been a salesperson, a sales manager, and a VP of sales, and one time I had an argument with another highly successful sales trainer about a particular technique called mirroring. I advocated for it, and he against. But in the end, it was just my experience against his--and I didn’t know if I was right. I consider myself a person of integrity, but I couldn’t prove whether what I was advocating to my people was true. I didn’t want to mislead them.

I had been a student of sales training for some time, and spent a lot of money learning all the training ideas I out there, and I came away with more confusion. They all appealed to the same sort of anecdotal evidence that I had.

But about twelve years ago, I stumbled on an academic paper that was really applicable to selling. It offered real proof, based on scientific research, of the validity of certain psychological approaches. I applied its principles to selling and saw results from it. And I wondered: Were there other ideas like this?

I developed the habit of reading academic journals, and was blown away by how relevant it was for selling, how it addresses the things we do every single day: The best ways to do things, and how to align how we sell with the ways that the brain is influenced.

So, that’s what prompted the book. I realized there was a huge discrepancy between the behaviors we train in selling, and what real scientific research says works. So, either the sales experts were right and the science was wrong, or the other way around. I could validate the science and see the evidence, so I chose science.

I saw that somebody needed to bridge that gap, and bring the reality of what science proves to what salespeople are being taught. Then I had an opportunity with Penguin Random House, and I went with it.

Q: How is your research different from that done by other sales methodology organizations?

DH: That research is based on best practices. They survey salespeople, and draw conclusions from how top salespeople answer their questions. Some of this research is fine, but you can’t innovate by looking in the mirror--the only thing you can do is spread best practices.

Our research doesn’t look at best practices. It looks at where science speaks. Instead of looking at salespeople and finding out what they’re doing, we look at buyers and say, “What do we know about how the buyer’s brain works? What does the science show us?” If we know the science, we can base our approach on that.

I’ll give you an example. Brain science has shown us that people reveal information about themselves in layers, like an onion. From that, we learn that salespeople should use a layered questioning model. This sounds complicated, but it turns out to be very easy to learn and execute because it mirrors the way our brains really work. It’s also highly effective for the same reason.

So what we do is we look at the science, when it offers definitive answers, and whatever the science tells us, we go with it.

Q: Have you validated the science in practice?

DH: Yes. We absolutely validate in the field. To use the questioning example, we’ve been teaching that for years, and the data from that validates its effectiveness, which is night and day above standard best practice.

Another example is the fascinating research from neuroscience that tells us exactly what human emotion does during a sale. It illuminates how we as salespeople should behave. At the end of a sale, for instance, there are specific things that happen inside someone’s brain, and we can align with that to drive their commitment to the sale.

We applied these changes over a six-year time period, looking at thousands of sales calls, and discovered that when the salesperson did not align with these changes, the sale was lost. When they do align with it, the sale is won.

Q: What do you see as the key insights from your research?

DH: There was an alarming study published in HBR a couple years ago, that found that 63% of salespeople were regularly behaving in ways that drove down the likelihood of the sale. Only 37% were consistently effective.

The key insight is this: The closer your selling is aligned with how the brain is wired to create a buying decision, the more successful you will be. The less aligned, the less effective.

This gets to the root of success and failure in selling.

When I’m training salespeople, I compare what they’re doing to all the research into how the buying process occurs, and we help them through the process. Until recently, nobody really knew what happens inside the buyer’s brain, but that’s no longer the case. We have over 400 citations to academic research in the book.

Once our salespeople learn to leverage the science and use it, it gives them an unfair advantage over their competitors.

Q: Do you see this as a new methodology?

DH: Yes, very much so. Science-based selling is in its infancy. It’s based on the way you sell with real science, so I don’t own it--I’ve just done the first bit of research for it.

When you sell with real science, it’s not based on opinions or experience, and sometimes it leads to counter-intuitive approaches, but once you see it, and you start using it, you start seeing results.

One thing that’s new with the science-based methodology is that it’s totally buyer-focused. Everyone says they’re buyer-focused, but with this, it’s really about what’s going on inside the brain of the buyer. It’s no longer a mysterious thing--we’re armed with the science, and can improve any salesperson’s performance, regardless of natural ability, regardless of where they start.

Plus, it’s understandable and easy to execute. My goal is to make science-based selling the norm, so it’s not just me talking about it. Once people know this exists, why would they not want to leverage it?

Q: It seems like people have been talking about brain science in marketing for a long time. Any thoughts on why it hasn’t been applied in sales before now?

DH: Marketing is definitely ahead of sales, and I talk about that in the end of the book. Something happened historically, to affect that. Sales was ahead of marketing in the 1920s in academia. But during the Great Depression there was a massive shift, from sending someone out with product to sell, to asking customers what they wanted and making that. Sales lost a lot of status as a profession, and it was removed from academia. If you look at academic departments now, nearly every university has a marketing department, but almost nobody has a sales program.

That shift is reflected in how new research percolates into the professions. Marketing gets it first. And the thing is, this is hard work, to get the brain science into the field. There’s no one to cheat off of--you have to read the academic research. Before I got into it, nobody had done this. It took over a decade to write this book. If I had known how much work it would be, I wouldn’t have done it. There are easier ways to make a living!

So, I had to do the research, and then validate it in the field. It was tedious and hard and frustrating, like walking through quicksand. I had to take what I was finding back to Harvard and ask them to tell me if I was crazy, and then take it back into the field again. It was just persevering. I was working 70-80 hours a week between paying bills and doing the research and testing. I think that’s why it hasn’t been done before--it’s hard, and it doesn’t have the academic resources at its disposal, so it needed someone who was willing and had the experience to do the academic research and also the willingness and experience to take it to the field and test it.

Q: You recently became a Membrain partner. Why did you choose this software?

DH: One of the things I like about Membrain is its focus on driving the right sales behavior, and reinforcing those behaviors, continuing to drive behavior change. Combined with the insights from my book and training, it can improve results in a much more efficient and effective way, because it allows you to have those resources and guide your salespeople through a science-based process.

Another thing is that I’m focused in my training not only on the content that I deliver, but how I deliver it. I want the training to mirror how the brain learns. Membrain offers more touch points to make it easier for salespeople to adopt and embrace new behaviors. It also helps with coaching, which is so important. Knowing what to coach can be challenging for sales managers, even when they know how to coach. I think Membrain will help them identify the gaps, giving them the tools to engage their salespeople in very specific ways.

Q: In regard to the argument you mentioned at the beginning, about mirroring, where you and your colleague disagreed. I think the burning question we all have right now is: Who won?

DH: [Laughs] Yeah, in this case, I was right. I talk about it in chapter nine--When I went into the research, I found so much evidence for mirroring, it’s ridiculous. We have these actual neurons in our brains, called mirror neurons, and they impact how we respond to what someone else is saying. We do this instinctively--there’s all kinds of studies showing that mirroring is effective when executed correctly. I sent my colleague a copy of the white paper where I wrote about this, years ago, and he was great about it. When I talk about it in my book, I mention the argument, and then I cite forty different studies--hit, hit, hit, hit with evidence. Then I say: The debate is over.

So, in that case, I was right. But there are many examples where I’ve been wrong. Sometimes I dislike the science personally--like the science says to do a warm-up at the beginning of every negotiation or sales call, you know, chit chat. I don’t like that--I want to jump right in. But the evidence is compelling. So whatever the science says, I do, even if I don’t like it. That’s what we all have to do.

And I love this, because rather than me making stuff up and then telling you it’s true, we get to talk about the science, and start there. Plus, because it’s based on how our brains actually work, it’s easy to execute.

Q: Thank you. This has been very interesting. Is there anything else you want to add?

DH: I always end my talks and videos with this thought: Selling is very important. I believe salespeople deserve to know about the science, and research-based ideas that will help them sell more effectively. Selling is just too important to be based on anything other than proven science. That’s why I wrote the book, it’s why I’m a sales trainer, and it’s why I believe in this cause.

And I don’t see this being a Hoffeld philosophy. This is much bigger than one person. This is science. No one owns it, and there is so much more innovation to be done, and that’s what I want. Hopefully, the book creates that new conversation.

About David Hoffeld

David Hoffeld is the author of the acclaimed book The Science of Selling and the CEO and chief sales trainer at Hoffeld Group, one of the nation’s top research-based sales and consulting firms. To learn more about his science-backed sales strategies visit www.HoffeldGroup.com 

Twitter: @DavidHoffeld
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidhoffeld